wedding efficiency

being an efficient wedding planner is turning out to be somewhat of an oxymoron. though i'm sure that in the grand scheme of things, our planning is relatively smooth and quick - i realize that my high expectations of efficiency in any sort of process ... haha, well, are very high. what a way to test my patience, God, thanks. haha.

on the whole, i'm enjoying the process - mostly because i love planning. that being said, it's been stressful too (probably more for alan than me). he's been pulling his weight and then some, which i totally appreciate - i guess this process has been good to figure out we operate under an immense taskload. i have to say, this partnership thing is pretty awesome. and not just because i tell him what to do, and then he does it. (though ... that's most of it) =) google docs is my new bff.

the venue came together pretty quickly, i had taken c's starter list of venues, and then went online to search for all possible options based on pictures on websites. we made a spreadsheet where i'd enter in the contact info of all the places i thought were worth considering, and then he'd call them to get info on availability and pricing. (poor guy must've called 20 places or so). but as most of our friends say, he's the nicer half, so it's much better to send him to do the talking. from there we narrowed it down to 7 places that were available and in our price range - and we visited them, 6 of them in 2 days. it was pretty hairy, but in a way good to do them back to back and get a real comparison.

the third place we saw ended up being our winner - i liked the coordinator right away (al thought his previous job working for espn was totally obvious) - maybe that's why i liked him. regardless, he knew his grounds well and he knew how to sell his services without feeling greasy.

we ended up going to all of our other appointments just because we had set them up - and because we wanted all the information on possible dates and prices. but at the end of the day - like most of my decisions - it was made on gut. it's funny, i actually didn't have a great idea of what i wanted, but as eugy tells me, sometimes it's just as beneficial to know what you DON'T like. (and i do have definite opinions on things i don't like!)

the dress - probably the least important part to me about the wedding, since if i had it my way i'd just get married in my dobok. or jeans. (seriously - it's friday. why can't we have a casual friday wedding?) but i figured if i get to make 99% of the decisions about this thing, alan should get his one wish which is that i get all dressed out.

what expensive nonsense. however, eugy totally made it better by finding me less expensive alternatives, and for better or worse, i ended up buying the first dress i tried on. haha. i did end up trying on a whole bunch, and even went again the next day to another designer with mrs. sab - but in the end, i picked one dress from each session, compared them side by side ... and they were almost the exact same dress. same material, same cut, similar details ... yeah. so there you have it. looks fine to me, a little more elaborate than i'd like but not so much that it's weird. and best of all - half price. ordered it, and that was that.

the media - i had had my heart set on stillmotion since i saw them do b&c's wedding 2 years ago. i remember thinking "i have no idea who i'm gonna marry - but i know i'm gonna get these guys" so as soon as we started thinking about getting engaged, al was on the phone to canada, trying to figure out their availability. unfortunately the dollar plummetting, inflation, and wedding cinematography getting wildly popular has led to a price tag that's borderline obscene. but hey - the heart wants what it wants. i'm realizing thru all this wedding planning that i tend to go with my gut on my decisions, and find a way to justify it later. hrmm.

rounding out our media are the photographers - but that was fairly easy because they were the couple that i sgl'ed with last year. i guess i should have shopped around or compared, but ... in the end i think they do a nice job and they're cool people and our friends ... and it was one less thing to hem and haw over. done.

the food - well, the caterers are supposed to be good, but imho wedding food is wedding food. everyone can claim that theirs is awesome but barring being awful, i feel like no one's gonna care or remember. susie unnee begs to differ, as she thinks the food is the most important part - but honestly i just don't care as long as it's not bad i'm pretty sure it'll be fine. (that being said she took over the menu selection, so it's not even my choice anymore)

the wedding party - we'd had them selected for the past few months now, or at least 3 of the 4 we wanted to ask, each. i made a last minute game-time decision to make a switch (rather, i called her to tell her we got engaged and blurted out "will you be my bridesmaid?") but it all worked out in the end. i'm happy with my choices and everyone said yes! alan's guys totally don't know each other, but oh well - guys don't do that much anyhow. because sam wanted to be a bridesmaid so badly, i asked sab and mrs. sab if i could borrow dylan to be a jr. groomsman. i'm totally looking forward to seeing those two dance in together at the reception - they're so cute.

the invitations - thanks to bry's singapore connections, i think we're gonna get them printed and be able to chip away a teeny bit at our media fund. al's sister has been doing our designs and she's really talented - but she's also hard to read so i have no idea if she's happy to do it or annoyed. oh well. i think they're cute.

hair/makeup - another nonsensical expense, imho, but again, i realized if i care so much about the photos and video, i have to suffer thru this nonsense. (again, why life is unfair for women - guys just have to get a haircut and shave!) this is probably the #1 ridiculous expense i've found for the wedding - the amount of money they want to do my hair and slap chemicals on my face is crazy. but after much research, i settled on a korean company that has done a lot of my friends' weddings ... and just decided to grin and bear it. i really hope i don't come out looking like someone else - even if that someone else is really pretty.

the officiant - now THIS has surprisingly been the most difficult snafu of the wedding planning. who knew that for 2 people with extensive church backgrounds - it'd be so hard to find someone to marry us? eesh. it all started with his pastors, who said yes and then realized they have a scheduling conflict and will be on vacation that weekend. so then i wanted to be married by jc, my old iv staffworker and all around awesome dude. he said he could do the sermon - but he's not ordained, even though he's in ministry. sigh. so then we moved on to my senior pastor, who said yes, and then 2 days later the church administor points out that he's supposed to be leaving for honduras for a missions trip the day of our wedding. our assistant pastor is already performing another wedding. our other 2 pastors are not ordained.

yes, it's possible to go through 7 possible candidates and come up short to slap a wedding together. so as a backup, we have one of alan's friends - who is an ordained minister but younger than us and not himself married. on principle, we wanted to be married by someone who was married - but at this point it looks like yj may be doing the officiating while james does the ceremony. we shall see. pd actually wrote me back yesterday and said he would "make myself available!" since he doesn't like to leave before sunday for trips (totally heartwarming) - but this remains to be one thing left unchecked on my checklist for now...

the honeymoon - i had always had tahiti in the back of my mind, and since al didn't have a strong preference, once we decided to just bite the bullet in terms of the cost, he did a whole bunch of research (costco travel is apparently awesome) and we just booked it this week. another couple in our sg went to bora bora for their honeymoon and totally loved it, so we ended up booking at the same resort they stayed at. i'm really excited about the bungalows. =)

the favors - i know what i want. and i'm not going to post it here lest anyone is coming to the wedding ... but barring an issue with ordering or personalizing, it's pretty much checked off.

the music - this makes me uneasy because live musicians are unpredictable, but in general we decided on some people we wanted to include into our ceremony (who happen to have nice voices and/or piano skills) and that's that. he being musical took over this portion, and his friends are going to do a song. young was gracious enough to play piano for us for the ceremony, so ... done. since it's outdoors i didn't want to deal with instruments going out of tune and such, so no strings. as a sneak preview, we wanted our recessional to be the charlie brown theme song. a nice tribute to childhood, as well as something alan requested of the live pianist at the restaurant he took me to for our 3 month anniversary. (that pianist was really good, btw. as was the restaurant in florida. al is a pro with yelp). we picked our first dance song, and now the only other decision is whether to do a father/daughter and/or mother/son dance. i have mixed feelings about what our parents would like, because i feel like my mom will feel left out, but...hrmm.

the dj is al's realm - i find dj's to be like wedding food. you only notice them if they're bad. but this guy came highly recommended by our coordinator so hopefully he'll be cool. and as per gt's suggestion, you just give them a playlist and they play it. no sweet caroline or electric sliding at my wedding, that's all i have to say.

that's all i've got so far ... the list of things to do seems endless. i'm supposed to go research florists or something - i've been putting it off because i don't care about flowers. though i do want to see if i can incorporate throwing a football in for the bouquet toss - esp since i think the bouquet toss is really silly and demeaning to single girls.

t-minus 155 days (says theknot)